About

"I immediately fell in love with the rows of brightly coloured colonial houses with their wonderfully high ceilings, their enormous, barred windows and wooden front doors. Fuchsia and blue, green and bright yellow, turquoise and chocolate brown, pink and dark orange... as a painter, I was stunned by the magnificent array of colours spread out before me."Clemencia Labin

In 2000, Clemencia Labin initiated the project "Velada Santa Lucia" in her hometown Maracaibo. 13 years in a row, she organised an annual art festival that transcended regional and national boundaries and achieved international acclaim. In 2011, she participated in the 54th Venice Biennale, presenting her project "Velada Santa Lucia" in the Venezuelan Pavilion. In March 2013, she terminated the project in Maracaibo with a "Gran Final", the very last episode of this exhibition of international artistic dialogue.

The "Velada Remix", held in May 2012 and September 2013 in the city of Hamburg, and sponsored by the Kulturstiftung and ArtWeek, is a modified version of the "Velada Santa Lucia." In the thirteen editions of the Velada she had invited five or six artist-curators to travel from Hamburg to Maracaibo carrying a "suitcase full of art" to participate in a show in collaboration with Venezuelan artists, presented in the small colonial houses of the historic district Santa Lucia. Echoing this principle, in the "Velada Remix" again five or six artist-curators – this time from Venezuela – are invited to Hamburg, each with a "suitcase full of art", to collaborate with various German artists and participate in a Hamburg exhibition. Another city, another country, but at the core the same hospitality and respect towards artists, inspired by the idea of true cultural exchange and dialogue. Today, given the current political situation in Venezuela it would not be possible to hold a Velada there – one more reason to continue this tradition in Hamburg.

How does the project work?

The jury will chose five candidates from the submitted proposals. Each of these five guest curators will be invited to link up with one of the members of the Hamburg jury panel, who are also artist-curators. The Hamburg-based artist-curators will act as cooperative partners, hosts, mentors and guides – as a kind of "godfather" to each selected guest curator. Work on the collaborative projects between the Venezuelan and the local curators starts once the visiting curators have been selected, from mid-June onwards.

Each curator duo will jointly develop a stimulating, compelling and challenging interaction between their respective artists. The cooperative stage between guest and local curators should be completed by 15 August. The invited curators will arrive Hamburg on 7 September with a "suitcase full of art" carrying works by their chosen artists. After four and a half days preparation the exhibition will open on 12 September. For more about this, see the conditions & schedule >>>

What is the Velada Remix about?

The aim of this alliance is to form collaborative artistic partnerships between the Venezuelan and the Hamburg-based curatorial projects, creating space for a mutually stimulating, compelling and challenging interaction of different artistic perspectives.

It offers the visiting artist-curators from Venezuela rewarding opportunities for dialogue and exchange with Hamburg artists, a chance to explore site-specific situations for exhibiting art in a fascinating district of Hamburg and exposure to a broad art audience in Hamburg during the large annual Art Week art festival.